Malcolm Scott gazed down on the scene. "It seems a peaceful enough place," he said. "Is it not guarded?"

The clansman shook his head in the negative. "Shepherd and his dog over in yon meadow, my lord, but other than a goodwife scurrying to the well in the village I've seen no sign of men-at-arms. 'Tis obvious this Englishman believes he is safe from attack."

"Umm," the laird grunted, and then he said, "The house looks as if it is fortifiable. Stone walls as thick as any keep. And the door will be oak bound in iron, I'll wager. Not easy to hack through, but it can be done. No walls though about the place." He thought silently for a long minute. How to proceed? Would the Englishman, faced with fifty armed Scots, turn Alix over to him and admit his defeat? Or would he persist in the fantasy that Alix belonged to him, thereby forcing the Laird of Dunglais to strong action? There was no way to know the answer to his questions, of course, until he himself proceeded one way or another.

" 'Tis never wise to show one's full intent," the Ferguson of Drumcairn said to his nephew quietly.

Malcolm Scott nodded thoughtfully. Then he spoke. "You and your clansmen remain here, Uncle. I shall take mine down the hill and up to the door of Wulfborn Hall to see what I can accomplish with this lordling."

"He's not likely to give her up," Robert Ferguson noted.

"Probably not, but before I destroy his village, drive off his livestock, and take his people to sell in the Jedburgh market, I should like to offer him the opportunity to be reasonable and save most of what he has from my ire," the laird said.

" 'Tis fair," his uncle agreed, "and most generous of you, Colm, considering the scurvy fellow stole your wife." He turned to his own clansmen. "We'll be remaining here for the interim, lads," the Ferguson of Drumcairn told them.

The laird turned to his captain. "We'll go quietly," he said, "but ride slowly through the village to instill the proper amount of fear in these English. In the end I have no doubt we'll have to fight to regain possession of my wife, but perhaps a show of force will frighten this Englishman into being reasonable. Tell the men."

Beinn nodded, and then moved among the Scot clansmen speaking quickly and quietly. Then he returned to his lord's side. " 'Tis done, and they understand," he said.

The Laird of Dunglais raised his arm and signaled his men forward. They came from the wooded hillside into the open, riding slowly and silently down the hillside. The shepherd in the meadow saw them first, and a shiver of dread ran down his spine, but he remained with his sheep, for the clansmen made no threat to him. Indeed they didn't even look at him as they rode by.

A woman coming from the communal well saw them as they passed the little church and came down the street of the village. Dropping her full pail she ran shrieking at the top of her lungs towards her cottage. Several cotters, hearing her distressed cries, came to their doors, leaping back with fright and slamming them shut as the troupe of clansmen rode mutely by them. They continued on up a small rise until they reached the house, and it was there that they stopped. The Laird of Dunglais climbed down from his big stallion, and walking up to the iron-bound oak door, pounded furiously upon it. Then he stood and waited, but there was no answer. He beat upon the door a second time.

"Open the door to me, Sir Udolf Watteson! I have come for my wife, and as God is my witness, I shall have her!" Malcolm Scott called out. He banged the door again.

Finally a tiny window high up in the door opened. It had an iron grating and all but obscured the face of the man who spoke from it. "What is it you want, Scotsman?"

"Are you Sir Udolf? For I shall speak only with him," the laird told the speaker.

"I am he" was his answer.

"You have my wife, my lord, and I have come to take her back," the laird said.

"You are mistaken," Sir Udolf replied. "Go away!"

"Alix Givet was married to me in the rite of our Holy Catholic Church," the laird answered quietly.

"Alix Givet is my betrothed wife," Sir Udolf responded. "I have the dispensation from Yorkminster that permitted me to take her as my wife. My claim is prior, and it is just. You cannot have her."

"You had no authority over the lady, my lord. Therefore your dispensation is not valid, for it was obtained under false circumstances," Malcolm Scott said. "Alix is my wife, and she is carrying my bairn. I want them back."

"You lie!" Sir Udolf told the laird in a tight voice. Alix with child? She had not told him that. But in the week he had had her back she had spoken but few words to him. She could not be carrying this Scot's bastard! He would not allow it! She was meant to bear him a child. Another son to take Hayle's place. A son to inherit Wulfborn one day. "My wife is not with child," he finally said to the laird.

"That could possibly be truth if you had a wife, Sir Udolf, but you do not. I do, and she is with child. You are holding her captive in your house. Release her, and I shall go my way peaceably. Deny my request, and you will feel my wrath," the Laird of Dunglais said in a hard voice.

"Get you gone from my lands," Sir Udolf responded. "Alix Givet is mine. If she is indeed with child, I will gladly return your bastard to you when it is born, but its mother remains with me, you rough savage. You have raped and abused her! You have forced her into an unholy and illegal union! But I shall protect her from you! Go!"

Malcolm Scott shook his head in disbelief. "If you truly believe what you say, my lord, then you are a bigger fool than I took you for," he told Sir Udolf. "Release my wife to me, or suffer the consequences of your folly."

The little window with its grating slammed shut above him, but not before Sir Udolf had shouted, "I will see you in hell first, you filthy Scot!"

"God's wounds!" the laird swore angrily, and his stallion danced nervously as its master swung it around and galloped back through the village and up the hill with his men to where his uncle waited with his own clansmen. "The stubborn fool wants a fight, for which he is neither prepared nor able to win," he said to Robert Ferguson.

"The house is strongly made," Beinn said to his lord. "While you spoke with the Englishman I sent several of our men to ride about it, looking for weaknesses in the structure. There are none we could see. The windows are all shuttered for winter, and there are but two doors. The one before which you stood, and a tiny door that probably leads to the kitchens. Like its larger mate, it is iron-bound and oak. The walls are all stone and of a deep thickness. It needs no wall or moat about it, for it is as strong as any keep, my lord. We are not equipped to batter it down as we are now."

The laird said nothing for what seemed a long few moments, but then he spoke. "This Englishman sits behind his house walls smugly holding my wife and our unborn bairn as his captives and thinking she is his for the taking. We will fire the village and take his livestock first. But when I return it will be for my wife, and once she is safe I will kill Sir Udolf Watteson myself for his temerity. Which will you have, Uncle? The four-legged sheep or the two-legged ones?"

"I'll take the four-legged," the Ferguson of Drumcairn replied. "Easier to manage, and I won't have the bother of selling them off. What about his cattle?"

"Next time," the laird said grimly. Then, before they realized what he was doing, Malcolm Scott rode back down the hill, through the village, and up to the front door of Wulfborn Hall. "Alix," he shouted in as loud a voice as he could. "I will be back for you, lambkin! Do not dispair! I will be back!"

Seated in the hall of the house Alix heard him calling to her through the closed shutters of the windows. She smiled, and her hands encircled her belly in a soothing motion. "There, my bairn," she whispered. "Do you hear your da?" And she smiled to herself even as Sir Udolf stormed into the hall, coming over to the hearth where Alix sat.

"Is it true?" he demanded to know.

"Is what true?" she responded in a cool voice.

"He's put a bastard in your belly," the master of Wulfborn said.

"My husband and I are expecting a child, aye," Alix answered him.

"He is not your husband! I am your husband!" Sir Udolf almost screamed. "I have the papers declaring a betrothal between us. You are mine!"

"You had no right to seek a betrothal between us," Alix told him quietly. "You are not, were not, my legal guardian. I was a widow, and free to choose my own husband if I wanted another. You were my father-in-law, and I told you when you suggested it that I wanted no marriage between us. How could I when I thought of you as I thought of my own dear father, God assoil his soul? I should have felt as if I were committing incest. And certainly the church would not allow such a union."

"And yet it did," Sir Udolf said almost triumphantly.

"You as good told me that you would buy this dispensation, and I have been given to understand it took Father Peter three trips to York before your wishes were granted. And how much gold did it cost you, my lord? And it has all come to naught. Let me go home to my husband. He's still out there, isn't he? I could hear him through the shutters in the hall when he cried out to me."

"He has bewitched you!" Sir Udolf insisted. "And seduced you not only in body but in soul. When your bastard is bom it shall be taken from you. Then we may count this unfortunate incident closed. Father Peter will bless us and our union, and you will give me a son to replace the one you took from me."

Alix looked at him, astounded. "Are you mad, my lord?" she wanted to know. "I took nothing from you, but that son who grows more saintly in your eyes daily took much from me. He took the most precious gift I had to offer any man, my virginity. On our wedding night he took it cruelly, brutally, and then left me to return to his mistress. I lay in a cold dark chamber frightened and in pain. Hayle hated me for being his wife. He called me a whore because I agreed to our union so that my father would be safe in his last days, so that I might have a home. I know that most marriages do not begin with love, and knowing your son's devotion to his Maida, I did not expect his love. But I was entitled to his respect, for I was willing to give him mine. And a little kindness would not have gone awry with me. Instead I was mounted in the dark almost every night like a mare in heat. He did not want to see my face or even have me looking at his shadow, for the guilt that overwhelmed him at the taking of a woman other than Maida was too much for him. Hayle was like a boy with his first and only love. Sometimes I felt as if I were years older than he was, and yet it was he who was the elder."

"But I would not-could not-treat you like my son did," Sir Udolf told her.

"I know you would not, and I do not disagree that you need another wife, my lord," Alix said. "But you cannot have me. I am already a wife to the Laird of Dunglais, and soon to be a mother to my husband's son. Let me go, and find yourself another. I am certain there is a family hereabouts who has an eligible daughter. I know you have not spoken to your neighbors in years, but now would be a good time to renew your acquaintance with them. We are all at peace with one another."

Before he might answer her, a serving man ran into the hall. "My lord! My lord! The Scots are burning the village! They are driving off the people and your sheep!"

For a moment Sir Udolf looked befuddled and bemused. Then he cried, "This savage whose bastard you carry has done this! He will never have you back! Never! And when the brat springs forth from your womb, madame, I will slay it myself and send its body back to him at your Dunglais."

"You have brought this upon yourself!" Alix told him angrily, coming quickly to her feet. "If you had returned me to him when the laird asked you, we could have gone home. My husband would have left you in peace. This is his answer to your intractability, my lord. You wish to blame someone for this misfortune? Blame yourself!" Then she pierced him with a hard look. "And if I have the misfortune to still be at Wulfborn when my son is born, I give you fair warning. Make one move towards him, and I will kill you myself! You are mad to believe I would allow you to harm my child." And turning on her heel, she left the hall while behind her the few servants stared open-mouthed at Alix's outburst.

Sir Udolf Watteson sat down heavily, remaining silent and still for several long minutes. Finally he stood up, and climbing to the top of his house, opened the shutters on the very window from which his son had hurled himself. Looking out he saw his village burning merrily and heard the faint cries of the wounded. His flock of sheep was gone from the hillside, as was the shepherd and his dog. His few cattle, however, remained. Of the Scots there was no trace now but for the destruction they left in their wake. He sighed as he drew the shutter closed and returned to his hall.